Reselling on eBay: 24 Mistakes New eBay Sellers Make

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Introduction

If you sell on eBay, chances are, you’ve made mistakes along the way. I don’t know a single eBay seller who hasn’t. Most mistakes are common among sellers; however, they can be avoided. The best way to grow on eBay is to learn from others. I’ve put together the top 24 mistakes new eBay sellers make with hopes that it helps you become a better seller, faster!

Why Knowing about the Mistakes New eBay Sellers Make is Important

When you first start selling on the eBay marketplace, there’s a lot to learn. From opening an eBay store, to figuring out what to sell, how to price your items, how to ship items, and beyond. There’s a lot of information, which can be overwhelming. When you’re a new seller, you have endless questions. While there isn’t one single guide, book, or course that has all the answers, it can be very beneficial to learn from eBay sellers who have already made mistakes, because you will most likely encounter the same ones. 

1. Treating Reselling on eBay like a Hobby Instead of a Business

If you want to start a reselling business, you need to treat eBay like a business. Reselling takes time and effort. There are systems you need to put in to place. Tracking your inventory and sales. Recording mileage, cost of goods, eBay fees, and shipping charges. When we first started reselling, we used a simple spreadsheet to track everything. Now, there is software available such as My Reseller Genie that can do all this. By tracking your numbers, you’ll have a breakdown of everything to see how much you’re actually profiting once you factor in all the costs and fees that come with reselling. 

2. Offering Free Shipping on Large Items

Shipping is one of the biggest challenges eBay sellers face, especially when you first start. When you list an item, the product listing must have a shipping service for buyers to choose. You have the option to offer free shipping or have the buyer pay for shipping. With larger and/or bulky items, using calculated shipping is the way to go.

When a buyer goes to purchase your item, the shipping cost will be calculated based on the weights and dimensions you put in the listing. Then, they pay for shipping based on how much it will cost to ship the item from where you are located to their location. That way, when you buy the shipping labels, you know your shipping costs will be covered.

3. Ignoring eBay Selling Announcements

eBay has a section within your selling overview page titled “Selling Announcements”. This should be something you check weekly. You will find updates to the platform, important announcements, seller stories, and shipping changes. It is important to read these announcements because they might affect you as a seller, especially during Q4 when shipping rates increase due to the holiday season. Another place you can view these announcements is on eBay’s community page.

4. Not Having a Designated Area for Photographing & Listing

Taking good photos is important because pictures tell a thousand words. Find a place that has good lighting and that is easily accessible. eBay encourages sellers to have a white background. We sometimes take photos on our gray floor, then use the eBay background remover for the main photo. You can also look into an app like PhotoRoom which has both a free and paid photo-editing software. Always make sure you photograph any flaws or defects. eBay now also allows video, which is good to add for items such as electronics that need to be powered on.

5. Taking Too Long to Ship Items to Buyers

When you create your product listing, you have to set a handling time. That handling time will be shown to buyers letting them know an estimated date the item will arrive. If you set a long handling time, such as 3-5 days, that could deter buyers from buying your item. I would recommend a 1-2 day handling time. Buyers want their item shipped as fast as possible. Make sure if you do choose a shorter handling time, you are shipping within that time frame.  If you do not ship within the time frame you promise your customers, it will affect your overall eBay matrix.

6. Not Taking Advantage of Opening an eBay Store

eBay offers four different store subscriptions: Starter, Basic, Premium, and Anchor. Whether you are a part or full-time seller, having an eBay store will help grow your brand and/or business. Each eBay store has different tools, such as the ability to build a customer base with newsletters or coupons. You will also save on fees and get free monthly listings. When you open an eBay Store, you’ll have the opportunity to name your store, which can help grow your business by establishing a brand, and letting buyers know what you sell. It also helps search engines find your business.

7. Storing Inventory without an Inventory System

As you start to build your store, it doesn’t take long for your inventory to grow. There are many inventory systems you can use. Some eBay clothing sellers will use inventory label stickers to number each item. Others will store items in numbered plastic bins, which is how we prefer to store our inventory. When listing an item, we will use the “custom SKU” line to enter the numbered bin we will store the item in. When the item sells, we know which bin the item is in. Having an inventory system from the start will help you stay organized as you grow, which also contributes to fast shipping.

8. Sourcing Only at Thrift Stores 

Thrift stores are a great place to find inventory. Most eBay sellers find used items at thrift stores to sell on eBay for a profit. Reason being, the average buy cost for items is much lower than in retail stores. Thrift stores aren’t the only places to find new and used items. Garage & estate sales can be lucrative ways to find inventory. You can also find inventory that people resell locally on Facebook Marketplace. Diversifying where you find inventory will help you when thrift stores raise their prices or are low on good inventory. Buying in bulk online or bidding on storage units are also unique ways to obtain inventory for your eBay business. Use tools like EstateSales.net to help locate sales near you.

9. Buying Brands and Items other eBay Sellers are Reselling on eBay

There’s nothing wrong with learning what sells by following other eBay sellers. However, sometimes the content you are seeing is older and the market may have changed. At times, items can become saturated because there’s so many sellers who start finding that brand or item. Learn the process of looking up items and start doing your own research.  

10. Not Understanding How to Research Items That Sell on eBay

Sell through rate is one way to determine if an item is going to sell and what the average selling price is. For example, you find a pair of men's New Balance 412 v3 size 10 shoes. Search for those keywords on eBay to see how many are listed. Then, use the filter to show only completed and sold items. If there are 48 pairs listed and 46 have sold, that’s a good sell through rate. You’ll also see what the shoes are selling for to help know what to price yours at when you create a listing. Make sure to be as specific as possible with keywords to have a more accurate sell through rate.

11. Reselling Items on eBay That Require Too Much Research

Start with items you know, enjoy, and already have. When you start reselling, there are so many items you will have to look up. Some items will take much more research than others. I have a lot of vintage Levi's women's jeans I acquired from an eBay store we bought out. I know nothing about them, nor do I enjoy listing jeans. I would rather focus on items I already know about and don’t have to look up in order to make a buying decision. 

12. Not Investing in Tools to Help the Listing Process

Listing can take longer if you don’t use tools to help speed up the process. eBay allows you to create listing templates, which is good if you sell a lot of like items. We sell a lot of golf clubs, which have similar item specifics. We use the same template that has a generic title, item and store category, shipping and return policy. When we create a new listing, we only have to add and/or change a few details of the golf club being listed.

One popular tool to help you list more is using a cross posting service. We use List Perfectly to cross post from eBay to Poshmark and/or Mercari. List Perfectly added a new feature called the Listing Assistant. It’s an AI tool that can create a listing from the first six photos you take of an item. It makes listing faster and more fun!

*Use coupon code freewayflippers to get 30% off your first month of List Perfectly*

13. Not Having enough of or the Correct Shipping Supplies 

Nothing is worse than selling an item on eBay and spending time looking for the right sized box. We sell a lot of shoes and always keep 12x6x4 and 12x6x6 boxes on hand. There are items we sell that are irregular, so make sure you have boxes on hand that will fit bigger items if you choose to sell them. Shipping supplies are an expense and needed when you sell on eBay. Check locally for free, or low-cost shipping supplies. Stores sometimes have boxes and/or supplies such as bubble wrap or packing paper they would rather give away than throw away.

14. Not Analyzing Your Sales

eBay has a performance tab where you can analyze your sales. You are able to generate reports for the day, week, month, year, or choose a custom date range. This will break down your total sales, taxes and fees collected by eBay, and selling costs to see your net sales. You’ll also see how many sold during that period and the average sales price per item. I use this page to see which categories we have the most sales in, which will help you know what is selling during that time. Knowing your numbers will help your eBay business grow. 

You can also use tools like My Reseller Genie to help with this. MRG has a sales analysis dashboard that provides additional insights and allows a lot of customization by filtering your sales data.

15. Not Taking Advantage of Paying to Promote Your Listings

eBay offers the option to promote your listings. This will help your items show up higher when a buyer searches for your item. There are general and priority campaigns. Priority is a cost-per-click model, which in general, you only pay when your item sells. Some sellers don’t want to pay eBay more to promote their items. This year alone, promoted sales have been 50.8% of our total sales. If we didn’t pay to promote our sales, they would have been much lower. 

16. Not Having a Realistic Buying Criteria

Reselling businesses can be run differently. You might be okay with buying an item for $5 and selling it for $20. Others might want a higher average cost of sale. There’s many factors that go into the profit of an item. You need to consider the buy cost, eBay fees, shipping supplies and costs, and time to sell the item. Setting a buying criteria will help you buy items that fit what you want to spend and profit on.  

17. Buying More than You Can List

The fun part of reselling is the thrill of the hunt. Finding an item that sells for a high profit is exciting. It can become addicting to look for things that will sell on eBay. On the other hand, if you aren’t listing those items, you can’t sell them. It doesn't take long to be in a position where you have a “money pile”, also known as a “death pile”, which can become overwhelming. Sourcing is fun, but also make sure you’re staying on top of listing your items!

18. Not Networking with other eBay Sellers

The biggest growth we’ve had has come from networking with other eBay sellers. There are local meetup groups throughout the country. The amount of knowledge you get from talking with other sellers is priceless. You can always connect with sellers in your area on social media as well.

19. Inaccurate Product Listings and Descriptions

Buyers want to feel confident that the item they are looking for is the item they will receive. Take your item when creating a product listing. Make sure the photos show all the details. If there is a flaw, add that to the item description. Enter the correct item specifics such as size, gender, color, and material. Having accurate product descriptions will help reduce the number of returns and make for happier customers. 

20. Not Enabling Best Offer on Product Listings

eBay allows you to enable offers on your listings. This gives buyers the opportunity to make an offer lower than the selling price. We have it on every listing since a third of our sales are made by using it. Another great eBay feature is the ability to send offers to anyone watching an item. A mistake some eBay sellers make is declining “low ball” offers. When a buyer makes an offer, they’re showing interest in your item. If you decline right away, that could deter them from buying the item. Even if the offer is low, counter with a price you are willing to sell the item for. This will keep the buyer interested and give you a better chance of selling the item. 

21. Thinking Zero Feedback Buyers will Scam You

Every buyer and seller starts with zero feedback. eBay also allows buyers to use a guest account for making purchases. Guest users won’t have buying history. We’ve sold plenty of items to buyers with no feedback and have had zero issues. If you take good photos and have accurate information in the listing, there isn’t anything to worry about. 

22. Holding on to Stale Inventory

Some items might sell fast, and others may sit for a year or two. It is important to recognize inventory that needs to be unloaded. Maybe the demand is low and the market became saturated. Prices could have decreased and there isn’t much room for profit. There are ways to liquidate stale inventory. You could convert listings from Buy It Now to Auction-style selling. Start the auction at a price you are willing to unload the unwanted items for. Or, delist the items, and sell them at garage sales or donate them. 

23. Setting Unrealistic Goals for Your eBay Business

Reselling is a business. It’s going to take time and effort. If you are reselling part-time, be realistic with how much time you can put into it. Also, have a monthly budget for how much you can spend on inventory, supplies, and other reselling expenses. Many people start reselling with the mindset, “it doesn't take a lot of work”. Setting realistic goals will help you stay on track and grow. 

24. Not Keeping Your Reselling Business Finances Separate from Personal Finances

One of the biggest mistakes new sellers make is using their personal bank accounts for reselling. But many don’t realize the bookkeeping and tax headaches that will come later as a result of not keeping your business and personal finances separate. Consider opening up a 2nd personal bank account. This way, all your reselling transactions, deposits, and expenses are in a separate account. This will save you so much time and make end of year bookkeeping and taxes much easier!

Final Thoughts

In the end, eBay is a great platform to start on for new sellers. eBay is by far our favorite platform to sell on! There are many learning curves you will encounter. As long as you’re open to learning and willing to put in the work, you’ll have much success! The best advice I can give new sellers is to just start!

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